


On The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living

by SufferingIsAChoice



Category: Alice Isn't Dead (Podcast), Life Is Strange (Video Game), Night In The Woods (Video Game)
Genre: ADHD, Derealization, Dissociation, F/F, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Post-Canon, Post-Save Arcadia Bay Ending, Will add tags as I go, ie exploring the "vaguely supernatural mentally ill lesbian americana subsubgenre", it's largely gonna be NiTW especially at first
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:53:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27723085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SufferingIsAChoice/pseuds/SufferingIsAChoice
Summary: Mae Borowski and Bea Santello take a road trip across America, and for all the supernatural mystery and fear it contains, and the things they do not understand, from the coast of Oregon to the abandoned farm houses, perhaps the worst of it is inside their own heads.
Relationships: Alice/Keisha | The Narrator (Alice Isn't Dead), Mae Borowski/Bea Santello, Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Chloe Price
Comments: 44
Kudos: 13





	1. Weirton

Spirals, they were only spirals, in the end.

Mae looked at her finger tips, covered in grease from the gas station hot dog she had just eaten. There, under her skin, were the little spirals she had been born with, and that she would carry until she died. Crime clues, ratting her out whenever she inevitably stole something cool, and shiny. And also completely out of her control. Just spirals, under the skin, like they had always been. Just the same as any other shape.

"Alright," Bea said, as she climbed into the car, and slammed the door behind her, "we've got enough for three more tanks of gas, assuming we sleep in here, and don't eat any more, that is."

"Th'nks Bea," Mae said, still looking at her fingerprints, under the dim, and flickering light of the street lamps.

The engine coughed, roughly, and the floor rattled underneath them as they pulled out of the Sheetz parking lot, onto the road, and then towards the highway. Overhead the stars were dim, and distant, drowned out by the incandescent and sickly glow of the street lights, and the industrial glare of the huge and threatening factories that the two young women saw in the distance, looming like forgotten titans of some long dead civilization. The radio buzzed, and hummed, playing some Johhny Cash song from near the end of his life, almost drowned out by the static, as they swept down the banks of the Ohio River.

"Alright," Bea said, after a long pause, as, in the distance, a flame shot up from a factory, illuminating the night, "nearly eleven. I figure we can make it at least down to Parkersburg before I need to get some shut-eye, and then tomorrow we can cross over into Ohio."

"Why Parkersburg?" Mae asked, still staring at the spirals.

"I have an uncle who lives down there. Might be able to annoy him enough to get some free food tomorrow morning. And also Route 50."

"Route 50?"

"Jesus, yes, Mae," Bea said, as she lit a cigarette, "it's one of the highways that crosses America. We can take it from there all the way out to the West Coast. If we want."

"Why wouldn't I want that?"

"I mean, you nearly died, we fought a cult of conservative grandpas, and maybe the world or some shit is ending, according to you. After all that bullshit, and of course also our hometown slipping even further into it's inevitably demise, well, what the fuck are we supposed to do? It's not like I know what comes next after something like this. I don't know if anyone does. And would you please stop looking at your hands? 'S weirding me out. Why are you doing that?" 

"Th'nks Bea," Mae said, finally looking away from her hands, only to look out at the dark line of the river winding past. "I'm sorry. I know I'm a sucky friend. It's not like anyone ever told me how to be different, or I ever got any practice at friendship."

"You did have practice, Mae," Bea said, gripping the wheel so tightly her knuckles went white. "You had a lot of practice with me, growing up, and Gregg, and all of us. You know how to do this, don't make excuses."

"I didn't, like, have any practice at college."

"Ah, right," Bea snapped, "the place that was so horrible you quit your one chance of getting out of our shit town. So much for Nuke Possum Springs. You know how many other poor queer kids stuck in shitty towns like ours get the chance you got? The chance that you gave up?"

"Alright, we've talked about it," Mae said, curling up miserably, as she pulled her booted feet up onto the filthy seat. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, yeah, me too," Bea said, through a glowing cloud of smoke, "sorry, yeah, we can deal with it later."

"Th'nks."

"So why were you looking at your finger tips?"

"Spirals," Mae said, still not looking at the other woman, as she waved her hands vaguely in front of her. "Just spirals."

"And how are spirals important?"

"Dunno. Just, like when it all happens, when it's all just shapes, or I spoke to," Mae said, trying not to think about the beach, and the end of the world, and nightmares, "whatever it was that I spoke too, or have an attack or whatever it is I can look at those patterns. Spirals. It's almost like they means something, to at least someone out there."

"Who?" Bea asked, after a long pause, as she flicked her cigarette out the window.

"Someone just as lost as me, I guess, trying to put it all back together. There has to be someone out there like that."

"Thousands, probably, Mae," Bea said softly, a newer, more caring tone creeping into her voice, "maybe a few others on these roads right now, out here in the night searching for whatever the hell it is that you and me are searching for. Maybe we'll ever get lucky and meet a few."

"I'm glad you're with me," Mae said, sniffing, as she finally turned and faced her friend, who was taking her on this ridiculous journey, with so little preparation, or planning.

"Yeah, well, don't get too mushy," Bea said, her long, aquiline nose pointing dead ahead, as her hands gripped the wheel, and the car rattled and jolted down the lonely highway, "I'm only doing this so you don't get in trouble. Too much trouble, at least. You're a mess, Mae, someone's gotta make sure you don't die."

"But I'm your mess?" Mae said, trying to make her voice sound more hopeful than she felt.

"You're a mess, and that better be good enough. Do you have any of those Snickers you swiped from the gas station? And don't lie, I know you did it."

"Yeah, sure."

The radio warbled, and a new song, sad, and lonely, started playing dimly. Around them, the low hills of Appalachia sped by, above the polluted crawl of the Ohio river, dotted by factories, and refineries, old steel mills long abandoned, and more, all leaking their toxic waste out into the water. The car was small, tiny even, and probably on its last legs, clattering over the potholes, taking them south, as its dim lights fought the gloom. They were alone, the two of them, on an empty and open road. 

Eventually, as they reached Parkersburg, ready to cross the river and head out into the flat emptiness of the Midwest, the tiny, red tinted clock, running two minutes later, ticked over to midnight. The late autumn stars were dim and distant, high above them, drowned out by the lights of cheap motels, and fast food joints. But the moon was full, and strange, and, for a second, as she looked at it, Mae thought she saw it shifting. Spiraling, maybe was a better word. Like something was interfering with her vision, or she was seeing double. Shapes, and spirals. Just shapes.

She shook her head, as Bea pulled into the parking lot of a McDonalds, and killed the engine. Beside them a beat up old pickup with an Oregon license plate sat, covered in graffiti. Pulled over onto a patch of gravel Bea could see a giant eighteen-wheeler, emblazoned with a logo for a company she did not recognize. Bay and Creek shipping. She felt like crying, and she didn't know why. Or maybe it was anxiety. She didn't have any answers.

"Alright, Mae," Bea said, quietly, as she let her seat jerk backwards, "get comfortable, 'cause I'm not paying for a room."

"Bea," Mae said quietly, curled up on her seat, "what are we looking for out here?"

"Same as anyone else, I guess. Closure, faith, redemption, answers, who knows what. Now get some sleep."


	2. Parkersburg

There is a story that Pittsburgh is the only burg in America spelled with an "H" at the end of its name. This is not true, but does have a basis in genuine fact. In the early nineteen hundreds there was an attempt to standardize spelling and remove the trailing H across the country, and Pittsburgh, the northern anchor of Appalachia, resisted. In 2006, however, Alburgh, Vermont restored the last H, and other cities still preserve it. Parkersburg, West Virginia, does not have an H in its name. It does, however, have a diner, small, greasy, and warm, in the morning, that Mae and Bea walked into.

"Fucking waffles," Mae said, as she sat down at the booth.

"Easy, Mae," Bea said, sitting down, into the sticky, fake, red leather, "we've only got enough for a small breakfast, unless you want to spend the rest of the trip with gas in your mouth."

"Gas?"

"Siphoning."

"I prefer waffles," Mae said, with a grin, feeling unable to feel sad on this morning, "who's the kid?"

"What kid?" Bea asked, craning her neck around.

"The sad kid, with the brown hair. She's staring at you," Mae said, waving vaguely behind Bea's head.

"Oh, right, like you could describe me as the angry kid with blue hair, or you as the manic kid with brown hair."

"Hey," Mae said indignantly. "I'm twenty! My hair is reddish brown! And neither of us are kids."

"Yes, you are," Bea said, her head still turned. "Hmm, yeah, she does look sad."

"Well, don't stare at her."

"Why not, she's staring at me?"

"Hello, ladies!" The waitress said, as she walked up to them. "What can I get you this morning?"

"Three waffles," Mae said.

"Just coffee," Bea said.

"Just coffee?" Mae asked.

"We've only got so much cash, Mae. I keep saying. Besides you won't eat all those waffles. Your stomach isn't as big as you think it is. Coffee, black, hot, that's all I want this cold morning."

"Coming right up," the waitress said, with a smile, as she walked away.

"Wrinkled old hag," Mae said, sticking out her tongue.

"Yeah, but I still was with you in the dark, Mae," Bea said, staring at her, her head resting on her hands.

"I'm sorry," a new voice, timid, and scared, said, and Mae turned from the tall girl with the under cut, "but I wanted to apologize."

She was short, almost as short as Mae herself, although a hell of a lot scrawnier. Her hair was brown, and messy, with a beanie pulled down low. All around the rest of the diner were people, men and women, who looked like truckers, although Mae asked herself what a trucker looked like. She was the only kid in the place, a few years younger, Mae guessed, but she looked like a wreck. Her grey hoodie was stained, and dirty, and torn, and she stank. She looked like she had been crying. She was the sad kid with the brown hair.

"Who're you?" Bea asked.

"I'm Max," the girl sniffed. "Sorry, I was staring at you, you reminded me of a, a friend."

"Your friends a grumpy goth?" Mae said, playing with the salt packets.

"She has, well, had the blue hair," the girl, Max, said. "And was tall and skinny."

"Yeah, well, like, I'm not her," Bea said. "For one thing I'm stuck with this hot wreck, here."

"So you admit I am hot?" Mae said.

"Shut up, Mae."

"I just," Max said, looking out into the mid-distance, "I just thought you reminded me of her, that's all. Been through something similar. Echoes forever. I'm sorry, I'm rambling. I'll go."

Mae turned, and watched as the skinny girl started crying, and turned, and walked away, just as the waitress came and put the waffles and coffee between them.

"That was weird," Mae said.

"There are a lot of weird people out on the roads," Bea replied. "A whole country of them. We're weird people on the road. Eat up Mae."

They finished the meal awhile later, paid, and left the diner behind them, in silence, for the most part, as truckers, and people who looked like truckers, ate their omelettes. The parking lot was cold, and misty, this late in fall, and in the distance the Ohio river rolled by. Mae opened her mouth, and closed it again, and then, in silence, climbed into the car. Bea turned the key, and nothing happened.

"Uh, Bea?"

"Shut the fuck up, Mae," Bea said, crashing her head down onto the steering wheel. "I swear to whatever fucking gods they tried to teach us about in church shut the fuck up."

"Didn't they also try to teach us about that fire-breathing pope?"

"Shut up!" Bea snapped, turning and glaring at her. "Not everything is fucking joke, Mae. Sometimes you have to sit up and be a goddamn adult. I am going to have to call my uncle, and get him to take the car, and then deal with repairs, and all that shit, and just fuck me."

A knock on the window interrupted the rant. Mae turned around, and rolled down the window, a cigarette already between her fingers. There she was, standing there, looking down at them, the girl from the diner, Max.

"Hey, uh, sorry, I don't mean to be rude, or forward, or anything," she said, rubbing the back of her head, under her beanie. "But I heard you yelling, and if you're on a road trip, and need a ride, I've got enough space for the both of you in my pickup over there."

"Hell yeah," Mae said, before Bea could reply, as a huge eighteen-wheeler, saying Bay and Creek Shipping, pulled out of the parking lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now we have met Max. But what happened to Chloe? Wait and see.


	3. Cincinnati

Cincinnati had an unfairly bad reputation, Mae thought, as the first buildings appeared around the bend. It was not it's fault that it was built in Ohio, across the river from Kentucky, not Appalachia, hardly the Midwest. It was a city in the middle of America, surrounded by distance, and that was not its fault. It was no ones fault to be born where they were, right? It was not her fault that she had been born in Possum Springs, in Deep Hallow Country. It was not the fault of refugees to be born in a war zone. It was not the fault of those in tsunami zones that there parents settled there.

Right?

"So where did you say you were from?" Bea asked, through a haze of smoke, which she breathed out the open passenger window.

"Oregon," Max said, as she turned the wheel of the truck with some effort. "And before that Seattle, and before that Oregon again."

"Always wanted to go out that way," Bea replied, absentmindedly. "I guess that's part of why I agreed to this idiotic plan with Mae. When you've lived your whole life in one tiny area south of New York, north of Kentucky, west of Philly and east of the Ohio it can do weird things to you, I guess. Although I don't know why I am talking to you."

Max opened her mouth, and shut it again. Mae noticed, as she looked at the younger girl. She had been noticing, this whole time. She was not the idiot that some people thought she was, that she thought she was. Something was wrong with the kid, and in their four hour drive through Ohio they had learned almost nothing. Bea smoked, and the girl drove, and the radio hummed and whined, and the world passed. Ohio was, boring, repetitive, and uninteresting, like it was that state's fault. Ohio had a bad reputation, right? It was no worse than the rest of America. But it was empty, looking like every other place in America. There were no answers here. She did not know what she had expected to find here. There was nothing here. Bea must have noticed too, right?

"Kinda quiet," Mae said, shifting uncomfortably, as she sat between the two of them. "You came all the way out here across America just to head back west? And you're giving us a ride? For all you know we're zombies. Or clowns. Zombie clowns."

"Shut up, Mae," Bea snapped.

"No, no, seriously," Mae said, gesticulating wildly. "We just got into this truck, with its stupid graffiti about holes to other universe, and you smoked a bunch, and this teen had been driving for hours, and the stupid radio has been playing and I'm just sitting here! How am I supposed to do this? It's like I keep passing the same place over and over and over again and there isn't an answer. I keep on expecting to see the same truck passing us over and over. It's stupid! Or you're stupid. Or I'm stupid. I don't know."

"It's not stupid," Max said.

"What?"

"The graffiti."

"I don't get it!" Mae said throwing her hands in the air again.

"Mae!" Bea shouted, flicking the cigarette out the window. "She's a weird kid half way across the country by herself giving us a ride to nowhere while my car sits in my uncle's place. Do you know how much of a bad idea it is prying into these things?"

"Prying's what I do!" Mae retorted, looking at her one-time friend. "It's what we've always done. And she's hiding something!"

"She died, okay?"

"What?"

Both Mae and Bea turned, and looked at the girl driving them west. A huge eighteen wheeler was passing them, on the left, and beyond it the Ohio rolled, and on the other side, Kentucky. She was crying, and her chest rose and fell spasmodically, as she started speaking.

"She died, okay? She fucking died."

"Shit, sorry," Bea muttered, her hand reaching to Mae's shoulder. "You did it again, Mae."

"She was my, she was my friend," Max said, pulling the beanie off her head, "she and I didn't choose to get born there. She didn't choose any of it. No one did. No one ever chooses. And she fucking died, right as I was coming back into her life, leaving her truck, and her beanie, and a fucking Chloe shaped hole in Arcadia Bay. In me."

"Hells," Mae said, "jeez, that sucks."

"Yeah, no shit," Bea said, lighting another cigarette. "You need to pull over, kid?"

"I'm not fucking stopping," Max said, the tears streaming down her face. "I crossed America without stopping, because if I do stop it will get me. It will find me. I can't stop."

"The hole in everything," Mae said, nodding like she knew what she was talking about, "the dark."

"The storm," Max corrected. "Sent by whatever fucking god or gods are out there."

"Yeah," Mae said, looking out the windshield, thinking of the beach, and what she met there, "I'd believe that. I don't think god cares about us down here in America. Or I don't think it can care about us, maybe."

"Shit," Bea muttered, "do you two know what you are talking about? 'Cause I'm not following."

"I think I do," Mae said, as her heart ached, and she looked at the city, just shapes, on the horizon. "We're doing something similar, I think, out on the road. America is a country more defined by distance than anything else. It's just empty, and no one chooses to be born here. It's just shapes. Just us, looking down out at it, trying to impose answers there."

"Surprisingly deep, there, Mae," Bea said, something strange flicking across her eyes, just for a moment, before she too looked out at the city.

There was a lull, as they settled into the space behind the Bay and Creek shipping truck. A sign nearby indicated a Price Hill. And the girl driving them, Max, sighed, almost convulsively, as she spoke again.

"You guys can stay with me."

"We don't have a destination," Bea replied. "This whole trip was kinda a bad idea."

"I don't have a destination either. But I still think I'm looking for something. And in the end, maybe it will be a good road trip, a good story, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. That's all I can hope for. Or maybe I'm just distracting myself from my real problems."

"If you are," Mae said, resting a hand on Bea's shoulder, "then I am too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oops


	4. A McDonalds in Indiana

Somewhere in the world was the best McDonald's ever, Mae thought, and the people who worked there, and ate there, and passed by there on the interstate, probably had no idea what a holy spot they were ignoring. It was simple math after all. If a single McDonald's could be better than another, then by necessity there had to be some place that was the best. That was how advanced algebra worked, Mae was pretty sure. Somewhere, probably in America, that McDonald's was still waiting for her. Because this was most certainly not it.

"This sucks!"

"Shut up, Mae," Bea said, halfway through her burger, "it's food, it's cheap, and after she's driven us this far it's literally the least we can do for Max."

"Yeah, thanks," the brown haired kid said, looking out the windows at the pickup, and beyond it the sunset, suspiciously like she expected something to sneak up on them.

"Oh, don't get me wrong I'm still nomming down on it, but that's 'cause I just eat shit and live, unfortunately, instead of eating shit and dying like I ought to," Mae snorted.

"No!" Max said, reaching out, and catching her own hand, and pulling it back just in time.

"No, what?"

"No, don't joke about it."

"Joke about what?" Mae asked, through a mouthful of meat.

"About dying."

"Why not?" Bea said, running a hand through her long bluish green hair. "It's not like it's gonna attract it's attention."

"It might," Max hissed grabbing Mae's hand from across the table.

"Listen," Bea said, moving faster than Mae would have given her credit for, and grabbing Max's arm, "I appreciate the ride, and you appreciate the burger, but no one touches Mae like that but me. She's a fuck up, but she's my fuck up."

"Bea..." Mae said, touching her shoulder gently, as Max let go of her.

"No, shut up, Mae," Bea said, ignoring the shorter girl sitting beside her, to focus on the teen across the table, "Mae has been through hell and I promised Gregg and Angus I'd look after her. She's fucking fragile, and I'm bigger, taller, and older than you, kid, so watch it."

"Bea," Mae said again, shaking her shoulder, as Max looked up at Bea.

"Shut up, Mae, you are getting in the way, and another thing," Bea began, before Mae cut her off.

"No, seriously, Bea, look at that."

The McDonald's was almost empty. A pimply teenager was mopping the floor, and another was standing behind the corner. But they were not the only customers, and one of them had gotten Mae's attention. He was feeding himself fries. He was eating them, Mae wanted to say, but that was inaccurate. He was devouring them. He was moving the fries from his cheap, greasy paper plate, into his mouth, and moving his fingers down into to the plate again, like he was mechanical piece in a mine, or a factory. And he was dirty, from his yellow teeth, to his yellow eyes, to his trucker hat, to his shirt, emblazoned with a single word on the breast: Thistle.

And he had just turned, and was smiling at her, grinning at her, wider than she would have thought. As Bea let go of the West Coast teen, he stood, completely ignored by the two kids working at the McDonalds, and walked across the floor. His arms and legs seemed to move independent of him, as if they could not remember what they were supposed to do, as if he had only read about human locomotion in a book once, three years ago. The three girls froze in place as he walked up to them, and as he licked his lips, his teeth an impossibility of angles, and spoke, his voice sounding like the accidental hollowing of the wind.

"It's a fine evening," he said, he eyes resting on Mae, and making her stomach drop out from under her, making her think of shapes, and things on dark beaches, and holes in mines, and waiting in her dreams, "you're one of Eide's girls, aren't you?"

"How do you know that?" Bea snarled, standing up, as Mae froze, and really wished she had not picked the outside seat.

"Bad business, that," he said, his eyes turning to her, stopping her in her place. "And you there, Jefferson's a friend. I hope you said hello for us."

Mae's eyes flicked to the girl in the beanie, who was looking at her hands, as if she expected something to come out of it. Tears were streaming down her face.

"Fuck off," Bea snarled again, through her teeth.

"Wanna see something fun?" He said, turning around, and taking the pimply teenager by the shoulder, like someone picking up a kitten. "Come along, Kyle."

Kyle did not look like he was having fun, Mae thought. He looked like he wanted to be anywhere other than where he was, by the blank horror of his face. There are things like nightmares but worse. Things like the beach but worse, or the mine, because she could not wake up or emerge, out into the sunshine. This was like a nightmare, but worse, Mae thought. She thought of the woods, and walking, and hollows in the grounds, and holes in mines, as she walked after the thistle man, and the teenager, as they walked out into the parking lot. It felt like she was moving in a haze, and in that moment she tried to reach out to something to hold onto, and took Bea's hands. Max followed behind them, but no one else, the parking lot was cracked, and warm, and abandoned all around them.

"Please," Kyle said, like a prayer to absent gods, as the man grinned, and held him, easily, but implacable.

"Something fun," the filthy man laughed, and Mae knew that something horrible was about to happen, but she felt helpless to stop it.

Kyle was about to die in this McDonald's parking lot, just after sunset, with three scared girls watching him.

The truck came out of nowhere. Faster than you would think something that size could move. It plowed through the thistle man, just missing Kyle, and ground to a halt a few feet past him, as the teenager, as if on instinct, he started wandering away. The thistle man was dead, Mae realized. Like the men that they had killed. Very dead, and smeared in fatty yellow chunks on the wheels of the eighteen-wheeler. She saw shapes, and threw up her dinner onto the asphalt. Nothing felt real, other than Bea's hands. Bay and Creek, the truck said.

"Get on board! Quick!" A voice was shouting, and Mae felt herself moving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A very hungry man showed up, referencing some things that might be familiar.


End file.
